


Forgiveness

by palaces_outofparagraphs



Series: after laughter [9]
Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/M, Oops, Travel, can you tell ive spent more time in england than in france, ive literally never been to france, the game is discussed at length, toby and spencer go to europe for A Break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 04:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12051726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaces_outofparagraphs/pseuds/palaces_outofparagraphs
Summary: Toby and Spencer go to Europe, where they take in Shakespeare, wander to their heart's content, and realize that no matter how far you run, the past will catch you up.





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> this is the second to last piece in this series! i hope you guys like it, and again thank you so much for reading <33

In the end, they spend six months in England, and a month in Paris.

It is heavenly, it is, for once, everything Spencer has wanted. The moment she steps out of Heathrow she knows they have made the right decision, as she inhales deeply. Different air. Different sky. A different world.

And Toby by her side. It is all she needs, and more importantly, it is all she wants.

For the first time in her entire life, Spencer spends months doing what she wants.

They have long, lazy days in their hotel, overlooking the River Thames. Just as Spencer thought, it is a completely different, utterly unreal way of living life; to be so completely unburdened from any external anxieties. And also as she suspected, this gives way to some of her deepest, most internal anxieties to blossom forth.

But - to her surprise, this time - she manages not to let them take over. Maybe it is the utter relief from so many burdens. Maybe it is the way she has fought tooth and nail the past three years to do as much as she can to better her own mental health; maybe it took going away to England to activate the rewards, to bring her the peace she has fought for - because she feels it now, peace like she is utterly unfamiliar with, descending upon her like a soft blanket at the end of a long day. 

She is, for the first time in so long,  _ happy.  _ She is  _ so happy  _ and it feels like nothing she’s ever experienced before, or at least maybe not for years and years - not since before all this began. Maybe not even then. Here and now, in England, free, and with Toby by her side, always Toby, there is nothing to be afraid of. There is nothing hanging over her head, no one counting down the minutes waiting to destroy her - nothing external, nothing internal, not even law school.

There is  _ blankness, _ somehow, but in a good way. There is  _ freedom,  _ somehow, and in the best way.

Or maybe it is just being in a city full of strangers, full of people who don’t know her name. Or maybe it is just that being a city full of strangers with Toby as the only person she knows - and, come to that, who knows her - makes her feel like she and Toby are maybe the only people in the universe.

And that is a remarkably beautiful feeling.

They spend a few days in the hotel at first, presumably so they can adjust to the time difference and she can adjust to this new form of existence, but really because there is very little that comes to mind as more enjoyable than a few days alone in a hotel room, in a city where no one is waiting on them to do anything, where no one even knows who they are. Once they think they can reasonably leave the premises without breakdowns, they venture out of the rustic inn they are staying in. They spend weeks and weeks exploring. They take in all the tourist sights first; ride the London Eye, Toby holding Spencer’s hand a little too tight (afraid of heights is one thing she never expected him to be, but it’s actually kind of adorable.), see Hampton Court and Buckingham Palace and tour the House of Commons, which Spencer practically hyperventilates at the beauty and efficiency and difference from American politics of; go back and forth across Tower Bridge and the London Bridge. They get whirly ice cream cones and wander serenely, going to Box Hill and Richmond Park and other long stretches of grass and hill and sky. They have tea and coffee and thick slices of chocolate cake in a million different tiny, adorable cafes, ranking them through a carefully devised system and arguing over whether any of them can even compare to the Brew. (They do the same with multiple pubs, of which they unequivocally reach a decision: there is no alcohol in Rosewood even approaching the alcohol in England.) They get tickets to the West End and argue over whether it’s superior to Broadway, and see five Shakespeare plays at the Globe in a week, standing tickets for five pounds each.

And Spencer sobs when Cleopatra dies, so hard that she’s glad the play is over, so hard Toby takes her outside and finds her a bench and goes through her breathing exercises with her. She cries and cries and cries, leaning against his shoulder, feeling like she’s crying for every single bad thing that’s ever happened to her - the most cleansing and cathartic kind of crying there is, and when she’s done, she’s exhausted and renewed all at once.

“I know I’m not as much of a Shakespeare buff as you,” he says lightly, when she can speak again. They are still sitting on the bench. The sky is grey, seconds, as usual, from rain. Spencer loves it so much. “But that wasn’t  _ that  _ sad. I mean, Cleopatra wasn’t exactly a sympathetic character.”

She’s still gathering herself, gathering her breath. “It was - I read it in one class in college, and the way my professor went into it.” She drags her hands over her face. “Cleopatra killed herself because she was the ending the story on her own terms. Cleopatra - rewound the play to the beginning, to act I, scene I, had herself played by a man, walked into the Globe Theatre and London and watched it begin. And then she  _ changed the ending. _ ”

She is on the verge of tears again, and Toby holds her tight. “She won the game,” she manages to say, before dissolving once more. “She won the game.”

They go to castles and museums, and spend an entire day in the Tower of London, and then another day arguing about whether it was Mary or Elizabeth who had the  _ true  _ right to the throne, back in the day. 

The summer dawdles by, grey and warm and all kinds of beautiful. In late August the temperature drops and the rain becomes more frequent, and they get on a train and travel eight hours, through hill and dale.

“It looks exactly like the Shire,” she says, nestled up by the window. “It’s like I’ve wandered into a dream.”

He kisses her. “Isn’t that my line, Arwen?”

She hits him for this, but admits later that it was very well placed.

They get off in Devon, by the seaside. They stay in a tiny little flat attached to seventeen other little flats, with a fat black cat roaming the premises as she pleases, coming into the house if they leave the door open, to Toby’s absolute and utter delight. They have a triangle patch of rocks and sea less than a mile away, and they go there everyday, climbing the rocks and cliffs surrounding it. They watch the ocean. It’s cold by mid September, but they dive in anyway, some days. They take cabs up to Torquay Beach and some of the other famous ones, but they keep coming back to their little patch of the world to themselves.

“We’re at the edge of the world,” she says one day. They are sitting nestled in a cliff, watching the sun sink into the ocean.

“I can’t think of anywhere i’d rather be.”

They eat fish and chips and go to many more pubs. They agree there is no finer country in the world than England, but when it gets cold and November starts, they decide to see what France might bring.

“Isn’t it supposed to be warmer?” says Toby, peering out the window. It’s been raining for five days straight, which is generally very soothing, but also wearing on their nerves a little. “In France?”

“I dunno,” says Spencer vaguely. “Maybe? It is November, babe.”

“Yeah.. but maybe there’s sun there.”

“I think you go to Spain for sunshine.”

“I don’t want to go to Spain.”

“Okay, let’s go to Paris.”

“Or we could go home?”

They think about it for a while, the pattern of the rain outside their picture windows providing a very comforting backdrop to the conversations.

“Or we could go to Paris,” says Spencer eventually. She still feels the tug of Rosewood within her, but the peace here is like nothing she’s ever known. She doesn’t know if going back to Rosewood will mean giving up that because, but she does know she’s not ready to think about it all.

So they go to Paris, where it is indeed sunnier than England. They wander the Champs-Elysees, they climb up to the top of the Eiffel Tower and down again, they kiss in the moonlight under the Arc de Triomphe. It isn’t England, they agree, if only because of the lack of Shakespeare; but it is Paris, and there’s a lot to be said about that.

They see vineyards and watch old movies at cinemas, and one morning nearing the beginning of December, they drift into a tiny little cafe.

The bell  _ dings.  _ The shopkeeper is bent over behind her counter invisible to them for a moment, and she calls out, “ _ bonjour mes amies, _ ” in a sing song voice that Spencer’s heart recognizes before her brain, her heart, that is, screeching to a halt.

Almost without noticing, she is clinging to Toby’s arm, her heart going from screeching to a halt to racing a thousand miles per hour, she is still not entirely sure what she’s hooked onto but she is quivering head to toe, and she hisses into his ear “we have to go we have to go we have to go - ”

But it’s too late. Her brain figures it out the same second the shopkeeper rises, and Spencer backs into the door, hitting against the glass.

“Mona,” says Toby grimly, almost as if he’s not surprised, even though Spencer can see the ways his hands fold within his pockets. The girls may have forgiven Mona for starting the A game, but Spencer knows - they’ve never discussed it, but of course she knows - that Toby never has. That Toby probably never will.

_ Mona is in front of her , _ and she can’t breathe, and Mona is breaking into a smile.

“Is that  _ Spencer Hastings  _ and  _ Toby Cavanaugh _ in my  _ shop in Paris?”  _ she practically croons, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “What on earth are you  _ doing  _ here?!”

“What are  _ you  _ doing here?” she croaks. “What - who - what - how?”

Mona laughs, it grates on Spencer’s ears, without meaning to, she takes Toby’s arm again. “Well, we can’t all stay in Rosewood,” she says brightly. “So I moved to Paris! Incredible coincidence to see you here, isn’t it?”

“Coincidence is one word for it,” says Toby grimly.

It is the most surreal experience she has had in years; she wonders for a moment if she is not hallucinating. “You’re  _ here?” _ she says. “You’re -  _ why?” _ She has so many questions, spilling over at the sides, and in a place in her brain she is not looking at, she is thinking that there were three people who disappeared from Rosewood three years ago, and if one of them is in front of her, then -

Then -

“Well,” says Mona smoothly, “I needed a change of scenery, after… everything. Parisian air helps with the various personality disorders.” She speaks so matter of factly, so unsurprised that she has seen them, and Spencer has a horrible feeling, grasping at her lungs and heart within her, that Mona knew somehow - that Mona still knows - that Mona has been here, polishing wine glasses and  _ waiting - _

_ Waiting  _ for them to come back  _ so she could start the game all over again - _

She is not breathing properly and she knows it but she can’t bring herself to care. Seeing Mona has unearthed everything within her that she thought had faded in the European summer air, but what she realizes she has only ever buried. 

And she is angry. Looking at her in that shop, her eyes glowing, her cheekbones shimmering, she is  _ angry - _

How  _ dare  _ Mona survive -

_ Hey, what the hell.  _ She steers her brain carefully back to reality, Toby’s voice echoing in her head, his eyes on her.  _ That’s not right. Mona was in the Dollhouse - Mona - _

_ Mona started this game - _

_ Mona’s here in front of me - Mona’s not supposed to be here - _

_ Hanna wanted to name her baby after her - Mona won the game - Mona survived and Mona won and how dare she win when she started it all; no, no, no, no - _

Mona is still speaking, she realizes, in that bright, droll voice of hers. She has no idea what she’s talking about. She’s only entirely half sure that any of this is even happening. Because why would Mona be here, in a cafe in Paris, in the same cafe they’re in?

Toby is talking back to Mona, measured and very normal even though he must be reeling too, she realizes; and a memory from eight years comes back to her,

“ _ I want to take her ponytail, and yank it -  _ ”

She tries hard not to laugh, but it almost brings her back to reality.

“ - it’s just such a  _ coincidence!”  _ Mona is trilling. “I’m so thrilled! So, Spence, how  _ is  _ Hanna? I haven’t gotten to speak to her in practically  _ years,  _ I always mean to message her but I’m so busy with the bakery, and starting over..” Mona sighs contentedly. “If it’s one thing I recommend,” she says, as if for all the world, this is normal: even in the sense of two high school friends meeting unexpectedly in another country type normal, which is an abnormal form of normal in and of itself, but this is  _ beyond even that.  _ “It’s to keep yourself _ busy. _ ”

_ This is beyond anything. _

_ I need to go home,  _ she realizes, and she knows it is true more clearly than she’s ever known anything. It’s like it was a decision she needed to make, and suddenly even Mona in front of her is more in focus than she was before. 

“Hanna’s okay,” she says. “She thought about naming the baby after you.”

Mona’s hands fly to her mouth. “oh my  _ gosh!” _

The whole situation still feels unreal, but in a way she can handle now. They natter on uselessly for a few more minutes, and then Toby, always knowing what she needs, makes up an excuse and they bid her goodbye see you again what are the odds of this! Phone maybe?, and leave without exchanging numbers.

Without speaking they begin to head back to the hotel, and walk along in silence for a few minutes.

“You know, up until now,” says Spencer, as they walk, the Seine River sparkling in the sunshine beside them, “I thought Mona won the game.”

Toby doesn’t say anything, but draws her close, arm in am as they walk, looking at her, giving her the silence and space she needs to continue. she loves him so so much.

“But I think maybe she didn’t,” says Spencer. “She didn’t. I think maybe we weren’t playing the game against Mona, or Cece, or each other. We were playing against  _ Rosewood. _ ” She takes a deep breath in. “Against the town itself. And the only way to win the game is to  _ stay.  _ To refuse to let it beat us. To make it home - home nonetheless.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Or maybe she just misses Aria and Hanna and Em and Ali more than she realized. Either way, she knows what she needs to do. “I love it here, baby, but I need to go back home.”

“Just in time for your birthday,” he says, squeezing her hand tight. He kisses the side of her head. “We’ll book our flight tonight.”

They get back to the hotel, and they do just that. And Spencer almost manages to forget that if Mona’s out there, in the world, in a bakery in Paris, then so is her mother, then so is her twin sister, she forgets sometimes that they are her closest living blood relatives, mostly because she has quietly doubted for so long the  _ living  _ part of that, she tries to forget, that identical girl with the identical bullet hole -

part of why she needs to go home, here and now is because she can’t let Rosewood win ; part is because she misses Aria and Hanna and Em and Ali and the babies more than she realized; and part is because if Mona’s here, in a pastry shop, who knows who else might be lurking? She thought the rest of the world was safer than home, but now she realizes that nowhere is. And she doesn’t know what level of unsafe it is.

She isn’t prepared to stick around to find out.

 


End file.
